


Gentle Repose

by anenigmaticsmile



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16546100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anenigmaticsmile/pseuds/anenigmaticsmile
Summary: Molly comes back





	Gentle Repose

Mollymauk comes back.  He shouldn’t have – he was decomposed years and years and years ago, rotted into the Glory Run Road.  But the silhouette of chains and horns and wild coat against the roaring fire in the frozen tavern is unmistakable.

He pretends he doesn’t see him.  Pushes through the crowd back to their little table where Jester waves excitedly around a sleepy Caduceus.  Pretends past the way the glowing red eyes flicker onto him, linger.  He shakes his head, once.  Eyes flicker away.

\--

“You all go up without me,” he says.  “There is something I would like to check.”

No one fights him.  He’s the cautious one.  Everyone knows that.  Nott gives him a squeeze around the hips and then it’s just him.  Down here in the slowly dying night.

He was going to go confront this Mollymauk, that was the plan.  See if it’s even him before the others are excited.  But he can’t.  It’s been so long, and what if this isn’t his Mollymauk?  What if it is the Nonagon?  Someone else? 

His hands shake as he orders another ale.  He leans against the bar with the mug cradled between his hands.  Talks himself down from the overwhelming _desire_ that _this is Mollymauk, gone and back again_.  He doesn’t even know why he wishes so hard.  It isn’t like they had been particularly _close_ when he was alive.

“An ale for me,” a lilted voice calls as its owner settles beside him, warmth pulsing out from the body.  “And what brings you here tonight, Mr. Caleb?” it asks.

“Oh, this and that,” he replies lightly, a canned response for questioning strangers.  It doesn’t seem to fit.  Not here in this dark with the time-faded memory standing beside him.  “What of yourself?”

“Why, little birdies, of course.  Did you know, your little band have quite the name for yourselves out in these little towns?  That’s something to be – “ he stops short with a little puff of air.

Caleb turns as a purple claw reaches to the barkeep.  Stares at the man.  He’s exactly the way he had been, young and bright and suave.  His eyes track slowly, guardedly across Caleb’s face in turn, but he postures out.  Lets him look.

“The name’s Mollymauk, Molly to my friends,” he offers softly across the silence.  “But I believe we’ve met already.”

\--

Molly slides back into the Mighty Nein like an oversized peg.  Which is to say, not at all.  There’s hands and hugs and smiles and hasty introductions when Caleb brings him upstairs.  And then there’s hands and elbows and the wrong side of a sword, once or twice, as he jostles around the edges of their group, fused into something new, something great over the years he’s been gone.  Been dead, again.

They move in ways he’d never thought they could.  Jester and Caleb and the new guy, Caduceus?, they all pull powerful new spells across battlefields and firepits alike.  Fjord does _something_ and the whole battlefield _shifts_ to accommodate him.  Molly’s still just Molly, bleeding the same blood from the same eyes and pulling the same tricks with new blades.  He can tell the way they fight _around_ him, not _with_ him.  So he trains, harder than he ever has.  This time to fight, not for show.  And he improves, but it feels so slow.  Too slow.

In the quiet moments, there are more surprises.  He’s backed off on the flirting, since he’s come back.  He’s not sure it’s welcome any more.  Not when he’s such a _child_ compared to the rest of them.  And then Caleb eyes him up from across the fire at dinner.

\--

He’d been right, back then, to leave the man alone.  He’d been too fragile, incapable of receiving the love.  But now?  Now Molly is warm and close and kind and funny and _close_.  And Nott’s been very firmly pointed at Beau.

They’re in love, the way they always would have been.  Given time.

\--

Nothing lasts.

\--

Molly falls again.  It was inevitable.  For all his efforts, they still had years and years of skill ahead of him.  They’re in the middle of fire and for _just one moment_ Caleb loses track of him.  That’s all it takes.

This time, though, they have two powerful clerics with thousands of spells in their hands.  Molly is back before the dust settles.

“I think this may not be the safest place for you,” Caleb manages through the panic and the fear.

Molly agrees.

Molly leaves.


End file.
